London's tourist attractions are 'world's most expensive'

Published: Sunday, July 20, 2008, 13:30 [IST]

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London, July 20 : Planning a weeklong holiday in London? Well, in that case, make sure you take along a bag full of green notes, for the city's top visitor attractions are the most expensive in the world.

That's the conclusion of a new survey of major cities conducted by British newspaper the Sunday Telegraph.

Fee-paying attractions such as Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Madame Tussauds cost considerably more than similar attractions in other capitals.

Critics branded the admission charges "outrageous" and urged visitors to concentrate on places they could see for nothing.

The Sunday Telegraph examined the cost of visiting attractions in London and 10 other cities including Paris, Sydney, Hong Kong, New York and Rome.

The prices charged by nine of the most popular tourist attractions in each city were examined as well as the cost of an open-top bus ride.

A family of four would have to pay 549.30 pounds if they wanted to take part in all 10 activities in London, compared with 386 pounds in Paris, 376pounds in New York and 216 pounds in Rome.

In some cases, the same company offering the same attraction in different cities charged wildly different prices.

A family of four visiting Madame Tussauds in London would have to pay 85 pounds, making it the most expensive fee-paying attraction in our list.

Yet similar families visiting the company's branches in Hong Kong, New York and Berlin would pay 27pounds, 52 pounds and 50.80 pounds respectively.

It was the same story with bus tours. While the Original London Sightseeing Tour charges a family of four 65 pounds to tour the capital in one of its open-top buses, the company's bus tours in Paris, Sydney, Dublin and Edinburgh cost between 24 pounds and 56pounds.

"These charges are outrageous and ludicrous. There is more to the city than these mega tourist attractions," Telegraph quoted Gordon Thomson, the editor of Time Out, the capital's best-selling listings magazine, as saying.